may be crime in others, but is not so in thee'--tremble; cling fast, fast
to the path you are lured to leave. Remember me!

"But in this state of mind I was yet forced to play the hypocrite. Had I
been alone in the world--had Madeline and Lester not been to me what they
were, I might have avowed my deed and my motives--I might have spoken out
to the hearts of men--I might have poured forth the gloomy tale of
reasonings and of temptings, in which we lose sense, and become the
archfiend's tools! But while their eyes were on me; while their lives and
hearts were set on my acquittal, my struggle against truth was less for
myself than them. For them I girded up my soul, a villain I was; and for
them, a bold, a crafty, a dexterous, villain I became! My defence
fulfilled its end: Madeline died without distrusting the innocence of him
she loved. Lester, unless you betray me, will die in the same belief. In
truth, since the arts of hypocrisy have been commenced, the pride of
consistency would have made it sweet to me to leave the world in a like
error, or at least in doubt. For you I conquer that desire, the proud
man's last frailty. And now my tale is done. From what passes at this
instant within my heart, I lift not the veil! Whether beneath, be
despair, or hope, or fiery emotions, or one settled and ominous calm,
matters not. My last hours shall not belie my life: on the verge of death
I will not play the dastard, and tremble at the Dim Unknown. The thirst,
the dream, the passion of my youth, yet lives; and burns to learn the
sublime and shaded mysteries that are banned Mortality. Perhaps I am not
without a hope that the Great and Unseen Spirit, whose emanation within
me I have nursed and worshipped, though erringly and in vain, may see in
his fallen creature one bewildered by his reason rather than yielding to
his vices. The guide I received from Heaven betrayed me, and I was lost;
but I have not plunged wittingly from crime to crime. Against one guilty
deed, some good, and much suffering may be set: and, dim and afar off